Saturday, May 4, 2013

Arean Exodus

I finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson's short story collection The Martians, tonight. It is set in the same universe as his trilogy of books about the colonization of Mars and the effects thereof on both the planet and the people doing the terraforming. It was a nice series of vignettes featuring a few familiar characters and locations, a few new recurring characters, and even some alternate-timeline stories within that universe. There were also two or three stories that if they did not break the fourth wall, otherwise pulled some kind of stunt that made it so that the stories were about the author and/or his process used writing the Mars books. I'd say this book is for fans of the series only, really.

I'm really excited to read 2312, by the same author, which appears to be set again in the same universe, a little further on in time so that even more of the solar system is extensively colonized. Reviews for that book on Amazon are all over the map, which signals to me that it may be right up my alley as far as Robinson's works go.

That won't be my next foray, though. I'm going to be dipping back into the grim, dark future in which there is only war. I've got 4 more Horus Heresy novels queued up, as well as the novel Metro 2033 (the inspiration for the game series), and a re-read of Tai-Pan I have going, as well.